


never knew a home (until I found your hands)

by ephemera (incognitajones)



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: F/M, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Rebelcaptain Secret Santa, Undercover Missions, or non relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-30
Updated: 2018-12-30
Packaged: 2019-09-30 08:46:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,542
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17220707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/incognitajones/pseuds/ephemera
Summary: Jyn hasn’t seen Cassian in months—after Scarif, he was shipped out as soon as he healed. Now Rebel Intelligence has paired them on a mission to pick up leaked secret data from an informant; a mission for which their cover is an estranged couple trying to reconciliate at the Festival of Harmonies.





	never knew a home (until I found your hands)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mosylu](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mosylu/gifts).



_But that trick is just to hold on_  
_through all appearances; and so we do,_  
_and yes, I know it’s you;_  
_and that is what we will come to, sooner_  
_or later, when it’s even darker_  
_than it is now, when the snow is colder,_  
_when it’s darkest and coldest_  
_and candles are no longer any use to us_  
_and the visibility is zero: Yes._  
_It’s still you. It’s still you._  
\- Margaret Atwood, _Solstice Poem_

 

Jyn hadn’t expected much of the tiny guesthouse, given the last-minute scramble it must have been to find anywhere for her and Cassian to stay in a city crammed to the rafters with festival crowds. She’d have settled for somewhere free of bugs (both kinds). And the room their talkative host showed them to was indeed very small, but it was also warm and inviting: lit by the soft glow of a dozen holo-candles set in translucent globes, with thick velvety drapes pulled across the window and what they were assured was a beautiful view of the mountain to shut out the cold, a bottle of sweet jewel-fruit liqueur on the dresser with two crystal glasses. The bed took up half the space, and though it wasn’t big—it couldn’t be, given the size of the room—the mattress was lavishly thick, piled high with more pillows than two people with only one head each could possibly need. If the two of them actually were a couple trying to salvage their relationship, the cosy space would have been perfect. “Romantic” was really the only appropriate word to describe it. 

Jyn fought down a nervous urge to laugh as the host left them with a cheerful injunction to enjoy themselves. The bright woolen blankets layered on the bed looked temptingly soft and warm, especially after a three-hour transit on an overloaded commercial transport. She thought about kicking off her boots and flopping down for a quick nap… wait a minute. That wasn’t a pattern on the bedspread; there were actual kriffing nathema petals scattered across it. 

Jyn blinked. “What are we supposed to do with those?” 

“No idea.” Cassian swept his palm across the bed, gathering up a handful to sniff at curiously. “They do smell nice.”

“What if one of us was allergic?” Jyn demanded. She strode over and started brushing the stupid things to the floor. Let the chatty innkeeper worry about how to clean them in the morning. Though the faint sweet scent rising from the bruised petals was pleasant, she had to admit.

“Isn’t there any proper lighting in here?” Cassian was eying the flickering candles with an expression of personal offense, and suddenly the complete absurdity of the situation hit Jyn in the solar plexus. She wrapped her arms around her ribs, trying to suppress her laughter. 

“Ozren,” she wheezed, calling Cassian by his cover’s name because this was a mission after all, however simple, and she shouldn’t break protocol. “Please tell me you’re not worried about reading your datapad. This is not supposed to be that kind of trip.” 

“Right, right.” Cassian ran a hand through his hair and looked around the room, swallowing as though he felt just as nervous as she. He twitched the velvet hangings aside and glanced out the window. “Not much daylight left. We should go out and see the festival crowds before the sun sets.”

 

Cifespa was a mid-sized city on a sleepy, boring planet known for exactly two things: its Festival of Harmonies and its deposits of a rare earth element, which had attracted a military contractor’s experimental division. And because of that, the Empire strictly limited access to planetary citizens and Imperial personnel—except during the annual Festival. Even Imperials weren’t immune to the lure of tourist money, and abolishing the Festival altogether would have enraged the Cifespans. 

So the Festival of Harmonies was their excuse to visit for a local day and a half, thirty standard hours: one chance to meet the Imperial science officer who’d approached Rebel Intelligence and offered secret data on ongoing weapons development. If they missed their contact or screwed this up somehow, it would mean waiting another year, or coming up with a more elaborate cover than two tourists on a second honeymoon. 

Jyn was a little surprised that the Festival was so tame; the crowds were busy and loud, but still fairly sedate. She said as much to Cassian—it was an observation any tourist might make, after all—and felt rewarded when a small smile flickered across his mouth. “What were you expecting, an orgy?”

No, but for a Festival known across the galaxy as the best place to begin or bless a romantic union Jyn had expected a lot more… obtrusive togetherness. Instead, it was mostly like any big celebration. She could see couples, triads, clans, a few larger gatherings that might be the kind of cross between a group marriage and a corporation that she’d encountered on some of the bigger smugglers’ ships. To show their connection, most displayed some kind of visible token or symbol: matching jewellery, tattoos on faces, arms, hands (and presumably less visible places), hair braided into the same styles or dyed the same colour. For a few of the less humanoid species, Jyn had no idea how to recognize their bonding symbols.

In comparison, the marriage jewellery she and Cassian had been issued seemed mundane. But the pair of wide red braided bracelets they each wore were conspicuous, and as a bonus they covered the old binder marks on Jyn’s wrists that gave her away as an ex-con. She really should have had them lasered off; it had just never been a priority, since she wasn’t a spy. But if she did, then she could go on more missions like this— 

Cassian’s hand slipped into hers, linking them together as he veered around a particularly large group of Rodians, and she squeezed his fingers convulsively as she caught up. But she didn’t let go. 

She looked sidelong at him. His hair was longer, and so was his beard, though it had been trimmed into something neater than the scruffy jaw she remembered. He looked familiar, and at the same time totally different. 

Before yesterday, she hadn’t seen Cassian in three and a half months. She’d showed up for PT in the medbay one morning expecting to see him and he was gone. As soon as he’d recovered from post-Scarif surgery (“recovered” in the sense that he could walk with a brace and cane), he’d been assigned to another ship in the Rebel flotilla that was still searching for a permanent base now that Yavin 4 had been compromised. Jyn had cynically chalked it up to their superiors wanting to separate them. And then, from what she could piece together, he’d been posted on various recruitment and liaison missions as the Alliance desperately tried to capitalize on their sudden boost in visibility and credibility after the destruction of the Death Star. Meanwhile, Jyn had been scrambling through assessment trials and rotating through Pathfinder squads and other companies as Command struggled to find a way to use her and Bodhi and all of the other Imperial defectors suddenly swelling their ranks. 

They’d managed to exchange a few messages, but between the necessary encryption and their mutual reticence, the contents had mostly boiled down to “I’m ~~not dead yet~~ fine, how are you?” Jyn hadn’t had time to think, let alone figure out what she felt about Cassian or why she missed him so much. And then yesterday, she’d walked into a briefing room on _Home One_ to be met by a scowling Draven and a quiet, withdrawn Cassian and given orders for Cifespa. Assigned their cover identities, they’d been packed off on a commercial transport crammed with other tourists, with no chance to talk until this moment. 

Now Jyn had no idea what to say. She wanted to know if he was really okay, and if he’d ever thought about her these past few months. She didn’t think she’d imagined the way the two of them fit together; how it had felt as simple and natural as their hands interlocking. But maybe she had. Cassian must be used to working with all kinds of people, after all, getting them to like him… then she remembered the way he’d looked at her when he told her “Welcome home.” No. If he’d faked that, then she was dumber than a mynock.

But that still didn’t give her any way of opening the topic, so she stayed silent.

“Happy festival, humans! Are you looking for a third? I’m in search of a nest to join, and you have very nice plumage.” A tall, angular Rishii stepped into their path, the shining emerald feathers along their cheekbones fading into longer, darker fronds that rose into a crest over their pointed ears. They reached out to touch the wristlet on Jyn’s arm. She jerked away and scowled but Cassian put on his polite, demurring smile. “No, thank you, it’s just the two of us.” He pulled her closer to his side in a way that shouldn’t feel so right (but it did) and steered her away through a thin seam in the crowd.

She could feel him looking down at her, studying her the way she’d been looking at him. “You cut your hair,” he said. 

Jyn was nettled. Cassian didn’t make totally obvious, inane remarks like that. Probably meant he didn’t like it. Well, too bad. “It was getting in the way,” she muttered ungraciously, resisting the urge to tuck the short locks behind her ear. It was just easier not to have to pin it back every morning.

The café in the main square where they were supposed to meet their contact was easy to find, even in the bustling crowds; its red awnings stood out against the buff-coloured stone and stucco of the surrounding buildings. Despite the chill in the air, the patio was almost full. With an apologetic smile, Cassian snagged a table just before another couple. Jyn sat down and adjusted the violet scarf she was wearing as an identifying signal, tugging it out of her collar and up around her neck. 

“Did they tell you why you were requested?” Cassian asked, in a quiet conversational undertone rather than a whisper that would sound suspicious, as he stirred the local syrupy sweetener into his cup of tea. He was definitely skinnier; she could see his wristbones when he picked up his cup and his bracelets shifted. 

“Yeah, something about this person claiming they knew my parents.” Jyn lifted her mug of hot cider to her mouth so she could talk behind its rim. “I didn’t recognize her name or the image they showed me, but I was a little kid. Not interested in my parents’ friends. I barely remembered Kr—the man in white.” 

“She said she wouldn’t talk to anyone but you.” He leaned over and murmured in her ear, so close that his breath crept under her scarf and made her shiver. “Kay wouldn’t like the odds of this being a trap. And neither do I.”

She laughed, a little too loud, and her mug smacked against the table when she put it down. “Why would they bother?” The Empire had known about her existence for years, and it had never put that much effort into finding the daughter of Galen and Lyra Erso. Her time in custody had been because of the shavit she pulled under various aliases.

“After what happened on—our last trip, you’ll be back on their radar. If rumours about you are circulating, enough for an officer to have heard them… I don’t like it. We shouldn’t have agreed to this.” One hand was clenched around the handle of his cup, knuckles pale; the forefinger of his other hand restlessly tapped the edge of his saucer, making it chime. Jyn slid her right hand across the tablecloth and nudged him with her little finger. His hand froze in place and he glanced over at her, biting his bottom lip in a nervous gesture. 

She wondered what it would be like to kiss him. Would it be frantic and hungry, teeth colliding with teeth, his hands in her hair and under her shirt and everywhere else? Or would it be slow and warm, Cassian making soft noises into her mouth before she yanked him closer by the hips...?

She shook her head, dispelling the useless fantasies, and managed to drag her mind back to the present. “It’s worth the risk. If we get this, it could give us another huge boost.”

“I still don’t like it,” he muttered irritably.

A woman wearing an Imperial-issue white parka sidled past their table and stood just beside it, studying the menu posted on the exterior wall of the café. Jyn tensed, wondering if this could be the contact. 

The woman ordered a spiced cider to go and leaned casually against the wall, waiting for her drink. Her eyes passed over Jyn and widened in surprise for an instant before she glanced out at the square again. “You look just like your mother,” she muttered. 

So this was Kiahlin Jobi. Her frizzy orange hair was scraped into a tight coil at the back of her head, her pale skin was freckled, and the longer Jyn looked at her the more she seemed familiar. She knew it was probably an artifact of her own mind, not a real memory, but she could almost hear the woman’s voice calling her Jynnie... 

“The weather seems too overcast for the festival,” Jyn said, giving the first half of the pass phrase.

Jobi stared at her, not saying anything else, and Cassian tensed beside her. “The skies will clear,” the stranger said at last in confirmation. “They always do.”

Cassian shifted closer to Jyn, putting his arm over the back of her chair. “I understand you have something for us.” He kept his eyes on the square and the crowds, scanning ceaselessly for anything unusual or obtrusive. 

“Not on me. I wasn’t going to bring it until I’d seen her and knew you were on the level.”

Cassian’s relaxed body language didn’t change but his voice turned icy with anger. “That’s not what was agreed to. Changing the plan isn’t a good way to impress us with your trustworthiness.”

Jobi shrugged, adding more syrup to her takeaway cup. “Spare me the lecture. We both know you’re not going anywhere until after the procession tomorrow because the charter transports don’t leave before then.”

Jyn took another sip of her drink, grimacing at the taste: it was cold now, and cloyingly sweet. “So when will you bring it?”

“The procession leaves two hours before sunrise. I’ll be walking in it. Wear the same scarf, I’ll find you and give you what you came for.” She threw a tip into the pot and turned to squeeze past their table again on her way out. “Happy festival.”

“Happy festival,” Jyn echoed, and watched the woman stride away into the crowd. 

They paid for their own drinks and left. As they walked back toward the guesthouse through the crowds that were thicker and louder now, Cassian simmered with barely restrained irritation beside her. Jyn was just tired. In a sterile briefing room, the prospect of travelling with Cassian, claiming to be married to each other, hadn’t seemed like a big deal. Now the night she’d have to spend in that small, intimate room with him loomed larger and more daunting.

“Tell the skies your wish!” A voice pierced her distraction and a grubby hand smeared with soot thrust a handful of brightly coloured paper streamers in her face. 

Jyn flinched and Cassian pushed in front of her, his affable tourist act back in place. “Come on, no need for that,” he chastised the scrawny kid. “We’re not interested.”

But Jyn had already hesitated, always fatal when dealing with a savvy street vendor, and the kid kept up her patter, sensing a possible mark. “Write what you’ve come for on the paper, burn it up—the smoke carries your message. But you have to follow through by walking in the procession tomorrow!” she warned. “If you don’t, it’s heavy bad luck. Very heavy.”

Well, they were definitely walking in the procession. Sometimes her superstitious side (or as Chirrut would have called it, her intuition) had to be appeased. Who knew if this was a real tradition or just a scam? Jyn didn’t, nor did she care. 

She threw the kid a coin and pulled a strip of bright red from the spectrum of colour in her fist. She gave Jyn a stylus and she scribbled a single word on the stiff paper braced against her arm. It was barely legible, but that probably didn’t matter. As soon as she’d finished, the kid snatched the paper from her, twisted it into a long spiral, and flicked a spark at it from a burner. She passed it back and told Jyn, “Hold it up.” 

She held it over her head, watching the smoke drift up and dissipate into the darkening sky, and heard Cassian sigh beside her. When she glanced over, he’d taken his own strip of paper—bright blue—and was twisting it into a hidden line without assistance. He let the kid light it, though, and they stood there shoulder to shoulder watching their wishes float up to the sky.

“Happy festival!” the kid shouted, already turning away in search of other gullible tourists. The paper burned quick and bright, shrinking down to ash at her fingertips in a matter of seconds, and Jyn brushed the soot off on her pants. She wondered what Cassian had wished for. Something impersonal and altruistic, no doubt, like galactic peace, or the crushing defeat of the Empire. 

 

They ate in the guesthouse that night; the food was good, and it was better to limit their exposure to outside eyes, especially now that they had to walk in the public procession tomorrow. Here at least they were only seen by the ten other guests crammed into the tiny dining room and the talkative innkeeper, who introduced himself as Tihomil. He spent the entire meal going from table to table chatting with his guests and asking extremely personal questions. By the time he got to their table, Jyn thought she was braced for it. Their cover was childishly simple, she could manage to answer a few questions based on it.

“And what brings you to our Festival of Harmonies, Miko and Ozren?”

Jyn forced a smile, telling herself that its stiffness would seem natural given their cover. “It’s been a tough time for our marriage. We were separated for a while. But we both want to make it work, so we’re here for the blessing of the harmonies as we try again.”

“Really?” Tihomil gasped, his friendly smile falling open in shock. “I don’t mean to pry” (now _that_ was a big fat lie, Jyn thought) “but you obviously love each other very much. Why didn’t it work out?”

Jyn waited for Cassian’s smooth, plausible explanation, but he just opened his mouth and then shut it, looking at her pleadingly. He was tossing this one over to her? Seriously? She blinked and struggled for words, hoping that her hesitation would read as embarrassment instead of being at a total loss for what to say. “I was—young,” she managed to get out. “We both were. And Ozren’s job took him away a lot, and it made me worry. I wasn’t very understanding.”

That seemed vague enough but still convincing. It wasn’t until Cassian reached across the table to take her hand that she realized with horror just how part of her improvisation could be interpreted as referring to their real lives. Did he think she was criticizing him for leaving? 

“And I didn’t trust her enough, or at least I didn’t show it.” When he looked up at her from underneath his eyelashes, Jyn felt that Miko could be excused for blushing like a scarlet monkey. That thrice-damned look ought to be illegal. And Cassian’s warm hand wrapped around hers and his thumb brushing over her knuckles was too close to too many of the things she’d fantasized about in the months she’d been alone. Jyn swallowed and pulled her hand away to finish eating, trying to ignore the way her head was spinning. 

The awkwardness stayed at full strength once they were back in their room. They turned off all the candles, and Cassian managed to find a brighter setting on the overhead illumination, but the sweet scent of the crushed petals still lingered. And there was nowhere to sit except the bed or a single upholstered bench. Sure, Jyn had known they’d have to stay here together, but she’d expected to spend the night working: decrypting the data they were supposed to have by now, or analyzing it, or _something_ … instead there was nothing to do. 

“Might as well get some rest, if we have to be up at the asscrack of dawn for this procession,” she muttered. They flipped a credit chip to see who got to use the fresher first. Jyn won, which just gave her more time to lie in bed, staring at the ceiling, while she waited for Cassian to finish. He came out in a cloud of steam, smelling of the fancy, woodsy soap, and hesitated at the foot of the bed. “Don’t say it,” she snapped. “You’re not sleeping on that bench, it’s too small even for me.”

She heard his small inhale of laughter with relief and flipped back the covers. The next few minutes were occupied with adjusting pillows and tugging blankets back and forth until they were evenly distributed. Once everything was arranged, though, she lay there and felt even more hopelessly awake.

Jyn could doze off leaning on another soldier’s shoulder in the rattling hold of a troop transport, or curled up in cold, sucking mud. But here, lying with Cassian on a warm, soft mattress, she couldn’t relax; she didn’t know what to do with her arms and legs. She could feel him just as uncomfortable beside her, lying stiffly on his back with his hands clasped on his chest in a corpse-like pose. 

This was stupid. She thought of the word she’d written down on the burnt wishing paper and swallowed. “Are we going to talk about the Wookiiee in the room?”

“Which one?” Cassian’s voice was dry and careful. 

She turned on to her side, facing him. His profile was a faint grey line against the darker background of the room. His eyes were open, and they flickered over to her and then back up at the ceiling. She swallowed again, her throat dry. “Are we back to being strangers?”

Cassian turned his head on the pillow to stare at her. “What the karking hell does that mean?”

“I don’t know what you want us to be,” she told him. “Friends, or partners, or—something else. So I’m asking.” Which went against all her instincts, but she had to. This mission, this one night, might be the only time she and Cassian had together for who knew how long. If Draven was bound and determined to keep him touring the galaxy, and Jyn was only ever going to be a grunt, their paths might never cross again. 

She didn’t think she was mistaken, or wrong about how he felt. She might only have spent a few days with Cassian, but those had been days not easily forgotten, and he’d done things for her that almost no-one else ever had. She hoped it was the same for him; she felt nearly certain it was. But the warmth of seeing him again hadn’t been able to completely melt the frozen doubt hidden somewhere inside her heart. She didn’t want to listen to the cold part of her that whispered he’d only been using her, playing up the part—what use would acting have been on the beach?—but that didn’t make it disappear. 

She’d closed her eyes at some point, so she didn’t see Cassian move, but she felt his weight shift the mattress as he turned over on to his side as well. “Can I...?” His voice was tight, restrained, as though he was frightened too. She nodded, and felt his arm wrap around her and his hand cup the back of her neck. She exhaled into his chest, a long sigh as all of the anxiety she’d held in for months began to loosen. His forehead came to rest against hers and she could feel his own breath moving across her cheek. The knowledge that his mouth was so close tantalized her, and she had a hard time focusing on his words. “This is what I want,” he told her. “Just—to be here. With you.” 

She let her hand creep up between them to trace the line of his neck, feeling the scrape of stubble under her palm and the slide of his throat as he swallowed. She touched his lips gently, thinking about kissing them, and he inhaled before asking hoarsely, “Is that what you want?”

“Yes,” she said. “I thought that was what was happening… but then you had to go, and I started to wonder if I’d imagined the whole thing.”

“Me too.” He kissed her fingertips swiftly. “It felt almost like a dream sometimes, like it hadn’t really happened, but I couldn’t make myself forget about you, or give up hope…”

Jyn still didn’t know what she was doing, but if Cassian wanted her too, she wasn’t going to let this chance slip away. She wanted to mark him, to heal him, to make him remember her forever. So she drew her hand away from his lips and kissed him. 

It was still awkward, at first, as they wrapped around each other. They were both a galaxy of scars and old hurts that didn’t fit together perfectly. Cassian was a little rough, and he slowed down too much sometimes, as if trying to hold himself back for her sake. Jyn wasn’t interested in gentle; she was fighting to find the line between hunger and tenderness herself. But in the end it was everything she’d ever wanted: his taste, his noises, his lean strength underneath her holding her up and making her gasp as they helped each other to forget how hurt they’d been.

 

Jyn woke a little sore, her head aching with exhaustion. As tired and satiated as her body had been, her mind hadn’t been ready for sleep, and she’d lain awake for a long time trying in vain not to think about the future or what might be waiting for them this morning.

The soft beep of her chrono alarm went off and she sat up. Cassian was already out of bed and getting dressed. He looked as tired as she felt, but as she ran her hands through her tangled hair and yawned, he smiled at her and she felt her heart try to leap into her mouth. 

Something clicked into place under her breastbone, and she took a deep breath. This was going to hurt. At some point, given the odds, it was going to hurt badly. But until then, they had each other—and that was more than Jyn had ever thought possible. 

Cassian tossed her clothes at her and she pulled on her shirt quickly. It was cold in the pre-dawn darkness. She rose and fumbled on the rest of her clothes, brighter and less practical than Jyn would have chosen; Miko was a tourist, after all. But at least she had decent boots for walking, since the procession wound up to the brow of the hill above Cifespa. 

Cassian finished doing up his parka and picked up her scarf, tossing it around her neck and knotting it loosely. “Any chance you’ll let me go alone?”

“No way,” she said flatly. 

A flash of amusement pulled his mouth into a wry shape that she wanted to kiss. And then she remembered she could, so she did.

The square was full of people gathering for the procession. They milled about in the darkness, breath streaming up in plumes of white fog lit dimly by hand-held lanterns or the head-mounted lights some of them were wearing. Jyn grumbled. She didn’t see why they couldn’t just turn on the street lights, if so many people were going to come out for this. 

“Tradition,” Tihomil’s voice pierced through the crowd behind them and Jyn tried not to jump. “It’s important for the light of the sunrise to be seen. Cloudy days are not good for the festival—fortunately, it looks like today will be clear!” He waved his hand up at the sky, and indeed it was spattered with stars and the fuzzy glow of the system’s asteroid belt, black except where a line of faintly brighter grey showed where the sun would rise. 

He beamed at them. “I’m so pleased to see you here, Ozren and Miko. I just know this will be the start of something beautiful.”

Cassian must have felt Jyn’s body tense against his, because he slung his arm around her and pulled her into the warmth of his side. “I think you’re right, Tihomil. Thank you for your good wishes.” 

He pressed a kiss to Jyn’s temple and she froze in surprise, her heart rabbiting in her chest. Apparently he was going to take every opportunity he got to use their cover this morning. Jyn decided it was a very smart idea. She closed her eyes and turned her head into the circle of his arm, wishing that she could stay here for just a little longer. 

But it was time for the procession to begin. They left Tihomil behind soon, the older man motioning them on with a quick flap of his hands. “I’ll get there in the end, but I can’t keep up with the young ones anymore. You go ahead!”

Plenty of other tourists were gawking, so Cassian and Jyn had an excuse to look around. Jyn didn’t see Jobi’s distinctive bright hair anywhere, but she might be wearing a hat—it was cold enough to justify it. She shivered, a little chilly in Miko’s inadequate jacket, and Cassian tucked her into the circle of his arm. She looped her arm around his back and held onto his hip. It was easier than she’d have thought to walk with their arms around each other. Lots of others in the crowd were holding hands, or linking arms and other limbs.

Someone banged into Cassian’s side, pushing him into Jyn and Jyn into the person behind her, and a hand circled her wrist for a second. Jobi didn’t look at them as she pushed a tiny hard object under Jyn’s bracelet, its sharp corners digging into her skin where the red cords held it in place against her wrist. “Happy festival and good luck, Lyra’s daughter. Make your mother proud.” 

“I will,” Jyn said, but the woman was already gone, melting into the crowd that was gathering into thicker eddies at the flat top of the hill overlooking the city. The view was stunning: snow and dark forest for miles, and the dark bulk of the city below set against the fiery line of the sunrise on the horizon. Jyn shivered again, and Cassian pulled her back against his chest, wrapping both arms around her. 

All around them people were coming together in their chosen pairs and groups, holding up holo-candles to greet the sun or lighting more strips of wishing paper, the rising smoke invisible against the still-dark zenith. Some were singing a song in a language she didn’t know.

Jyn looked down at the wide red band around her wrist, vivid in the dawn light, holding information that might let them strike another blow against the Empire. They’d retrieved the plans, they’d destroyed the Death Star, they had this. No matter what became of them, at least they’d accomplished this much. 

“There’s no-one else I’d rather be here with,” Cassian told her, and the tone of his voice caught her attention; it was soft, and serious, and it sounded like him. She tilted her head back and found him staring down at her. She blinked at him, wondering who was talking, if this was Ozren playing the part of a besotted husband. “I mean it,” he said, and his arms tightened around her. “This is what I wished for.”

Jyn felt a warmth spreading through her chest all the way to the tips of her frozen toes. “You mean, besides galactic peace?”

“Yes.” He smiled at her, a fleeting bright smile she recognized as one she’d seen on his face before. When he was Cassian. “I want that, but if I can have you with it… it would be everything I wanted. More than I ever dreamed.”

She turned in his arms, away from the view, and leaned into his chest, lifting her arm around his neck to hold him close. He pressed his lips to her forehead and she let herself dream with him.

**Author's Note:**

> The epigraph is from one of my all-time favourite poems, and the title is a lyric from a song that I was listening to on repeat while I wrote: [My Favourite Book](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=QxQ1BHHNOeM).
> 
> [This lovely piece of fanart](https://incognitajones.tumblr.com/post/181554275353/anafigreen-fixitau-just-fixitau-like-sequel) was also very inspirational.


End file.
